After a late night we were up at 5:45 in order to be breakfasted and ready at 7am.
There is always a lot of waiting and queuing when being tendered ashore. Anchored 26 miles out the shore line was shrouded in a sea mist when we awoke. The temperature seemed cooler in Bali and was probably around 31 degrees celsius. We were quickly aboard small mini buses heading for a variety of destinations; ours was the Elephant Safari park followed by a visit to Ubud for a spot of shopping.
We had been informed a day earlier that there may be delays because of New Year Day’s traffic and had the option of changing our excursion. Thankfully we chose to continue with our plans as we had a great day.
The mini bus was pretty old, in fact Lance’s seat back kept reclining into the lady behind him’s lap. Fortunately there was another seat spare so we moved. It was still pretty cramped but we had aircon. The roads are really narrow from Benoa and it was a 90 minute drive. Temples, stores and homes lined the roadside and long tall bamboo sticks with a drooping top were cleverly decorated for the festival at that time. Our driver explained that the island of Bali was 90% Indonesian Hindu and the other 10% were mainly Muslim and then a few other religions. Which is strange because Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world with a population of around 250,000,000.
As we got closer to the forest the road got even narrower and the bus in front clipped a small car coming in the opposite direction. We all stopped in the middle of the road to sort it out. The car’s back guard was hanging off a bit but they banged it back in and agreed to pay for their own vehicle damage. And it was a pretty nice car.
Our guide was really informative but after a while we were all ready for him to shut up.
I was a bit concerned about going to the Elephant park as I don’t support animals being used for entertainment and have heard stories of mistreatment, however after a bit of researching I found that this place was the pick of the bunch as they are an official world zoo member, elephant sanctuary and breeding zoo. The experience was fantastic. Extremely professional and informative; they had a small museum with artifacts and even mammoth and mastodon skeletons. The information about the care of the elephants was great as well.
We wandered through beautifully landscaped gardens and elephants were wandering with their mahouts or keepers. Each animal has their own mahout and they stay together for a lifetime. If the mahout is off sick then the elephant gets a day off. And they both have a holiday every six days. Our mahout had been with his elephant for 16 years and the elephant was 35 years old. There was a cute baby wandering around. He was only five years old and let out little sqeaks like Inky Pinky.
The staff were extremely generous with taking photos of us with our phones. In fact as we were going through a bit of forest we stopped and passed the camera to the elephant behind us. Well not the actual elephant. Sorry if you had a vision of a long trunk snaking over and taking my phone. I passed my phone to the driver who took photos of us. The ride finished in the elephant pool. Luckily not submerged, however some people had their togs on and the elephant was completely submerged with them on its back!
As we fed the elephant and got a photo the elephant wrapped its trunk around Lance’s neck. He was a bit shocked at the weight and the strength but the mahout said not to worry as it was just a cuddle. The elephants were really dry and bristly and in one of the photos you can see the top of his head as the mahout rested the camera on it to take a shot.
After a nice buffet lunch we all boarded the bus again and headed for Ubud winding through some lush forest and if you can believe it even skinnier road. By then it had been pouring with tropical rain and they handed us rain ponchos as we got off the bus. I had mine on for around 10 seconds before I had to rip it off. It was a mini sauna. Luckily I had packed a light rain jacket. It wasn’t very pleasant in Unbud, maybe because we were tired and it was hot and wet.
We tried the market but the ladies were grabbing me from one stall and pulling me into theirs. We just left without a purchase. If only they had just left me to it I probably would have spent some money. I got some earrings at a nicer stall where the lady just let me look. We had a little bargaining and I think we were both happy. We also popped into the palace for a couple of photos and where I realized just how tired I was from looking at the bags under my eyes in those photos! Back on the bus and into an absolute traffic jam all the way back to the ship. Booking an excursion from the ship is more expensive but you know that they will hold the ship for you so we were not in the least but concerned when we pulled into the pier at 4:30 and that was close to sailing time, a very long queue trailed out from the pier where the tenders were whipping people away to the ship. In the port building there were foot massages and items to buy. But we had given any money (rupiah) that we had left to our guide and driver. So into the queue we went. It wasn’t too bad as people were chatting and swapping stories about adventures that had been had that day. A basket of fresh cold towels came up the line and were much appreciated by all. We had to sit downstairs on the tender as upstairs was full but managed to get by the entrance so that we had a cool fresh breeze. On the way in we were packed right into the back and it was hot and oppressive. As the tender filled up one lady refused to get in if she had to sit down the back. Her husband just got on without her and the one of the officers gave her a bit of a rev and she got on. Then as we got going another lady appeared from the back and sat on the stairs to get some fresh air. Obviously she was feeling sick or uncomfortable jammed down the back. As we came up to the ship the officer asked to to go back to her seat. You could see how panicked she felt and she said that she just can’t. He was very nice but said that he would be in trouble if she stayed there. Her arms started to flap about and you could see her distress. So I got up and told her to sit in my seat by the door and I went down the back. I am glad I was only there for a short time because it was pretty squishy.
Back on board we thought that we would have a quiet night but ended up listening to a vocalist playing piano until 12am. Tonya Scott was very engaging and we just sat around the bar and she chatted between songs and took requests. We will certainly make sure we are where she is playing again.
No comments:
Post a Comment